I'm going to post the same comment I did last year when this showed up on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36207142 ), as checking the website it still seems to be true: Literally none of the evidence on the website's own "Why" page supports their suggestion: https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait All of the studies (bonus points for linking to news articles instead of directly to the studies) have something…
8th grade may be somewhat arbitrary, but as children grow older you trust them more with things that you didn't when they were younger, teaching them responsibility and independence over time. I don't need a website to provide some type of evidence (not sure what kind of evidence you'd be referring to) to understand that. It's parenting 101. This is just applying it to social networks (that's the issue more than the…
Wait Until 8th
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Re: Wait Until 8th
#212Parent here. This is a LOT easier today than it was 5-10 years ago. It feels like there's been a generation divide where younger kids are not as insistent on smartphones as the older kids were. Maybe it was covid. But also there's a lot of negative sentiment even amongst kids about smartphones - that they are addictive, encourage anti-social behaviors, and enable bullying. "Brain-rot". Our local school district banne…
Even as someone who enjoys taking videos at concerts, I really like the vibe at shows that have a no-photo/no-video policy. It increases audience engagement, and it stops the phenomenon where everyone has their phone held high in the air, blocking the view during popular songs.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed 100%. Additional factors on top of all those is some countries start year 1 at age five, and others at age 6, and of course there's a variety of actual ages within a grade as well. "Wait Until 9th" would have definitely helped a lot. "Wait until 14" might be even clearer. Or even "wait until high school".
You work with the domains you have/can register.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#214IMHO, this feels like another wave of nannyism that follows after a new technology matures. Being a 90s kid, discovering porn, violence, warez were all normal part of growing up that I don't think has had any negative impact nor do the puritan panic about pornography. Matter of fact the internet started speedrunning censorship and monopolization post 9/11 without much of a fight and I think this triggered the default…
Afaik theres pretty strong evidence of the negative effects of short form content on kids, and how addictive it is. We don't let kids eat as much candy as they want because we know they wont self regulate, I dont see how limiting online media consumption is any different.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#215I'm still surprised the "dumb phone for kids" and "dumb watch with basic comms" markets are so underdeveloped (from my perspective). I would love my kids to have (a) gps tracking, (b) ability to send texts/calls to like 5 predefined numbers, (c) tell the time, and nothing else. But watches all seem to have games or weird gamified fitness trackers (Google's new fitbit for kids). Or they are super kid-ish, like bright…
Sounds like Xplora [1] to me. I assume they have an English-language site but failed to find it and it's late, sorry. [1]: https://xplora.se/
Re: Wait Until 8th
#216I'm still surprised the "dumb phone for kids" and "dumb watch with basic comms" markets are so underdeveloped (from my perspective). I would love my kids to have (a) gps tracking, (b) ability to send texts/calls to like 5 predefined numbers, (c) tell the time, and nothing else. But watches all seem to have games or weird gamified fitness trackers (Google's new fitbit for kids). Or they are super kid-ish, like bright…
Re: Wait Until 8th
#217I know the site clarifies it, but the headline messaging on this is meaninglessly confusing. "Wait until 8th!" "Oh, you mean their 8th birthday?" "No, 8th grade!" "Oh, so wait until they're in 8th grade, got it!" "No no, until the end of the 8th grade, when they graduate middle school!" "Oh, so it's really wait until 9th" Just seems like this would be the beginning of every conversation and lead to a non-unified appr…
Agreed 100%. Additional factors on top of all those is some countries start year 1 at age five, and others at age 6, and of course there's a variety of actual ages within a grade as well. "Wait Until 9th" would have definitely helped a lot. "Wait until 14" might be even clearer. Or even "wait until high school".
Re: Wait Until 8th
#218I know the site clarifies it, but the headline messaging on this is meaninglessly confusing. "Wait until 8th!" "Oh, you mean their 8th birthday?" "No, 8th grade!" "Oh, so wait until they're in 8th grade, got it!" "No no, until the end of the 8th grade, when they graduate middle school!" "Oh, so it's really wait until 9th" Just seems like this would be the beginning of every conversation and lead to a non-unified appr…
till I read it, i thought it meant the 8th of November,† and I was thinking "does this have something to do with the election?" I was a little afraid to click "take the pledge" for fear of what I might be supporting † obscure trivial point of US law for fer'ners, US elections are held on "the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November" which puts them anywhere from Nov 2 to Nov 8, so that's why "wait till the 8…
Re: Wait Until 8th
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone has a different threshold for what they want from a dumb phone, some wants Google Maps, some think Youtube is ok, Google Chrome etc. which makes it hard to have a one true dumb phone. If you give access to the play store it's no longer a dumb phone The best way to have a dumb phone tailored to your needs is to take a cheap smartphone and make it dumb, either by using a different launcher, or a customized OS…
Isn't this what Family link [1] is for ? Or you can get an iPhone and use parental controls. My kids has a tablet and I get to decide what can be used and for how long, and nothing gets installed without my approval. [1] https://families.google/familylink/
No way to revoke install permission. e.g. child got ahold of a parent's unlocked phone, turned off parent approval for their own phone, and then installed a social media app. We have uninstalled the app, but he can re-install without requesting permissions. We have resorted to a 1-minute (the minimum) screen time limit instead. (Only work around would be to create a whole new iCloud account for the child!)
You used to be able to delete the purchase from purchase history, but now you can only hide it, hiding it should just retrigger the approval process?
There are well known / well documented ways to circumvent screen time limits.
You can't add additional pass code / authentication for the settings app or the parental controls
No way to prevent deletion of messages and call logs (and 3rd party tools just do a remote sync on Wi-Fi, after the kids already likely deleted them)
Parental controls are often janky or laggy and sometimes just don't work at all. And often require multiple re-authentication (iOS 18 / Face ID does improve this to be fair)
Re: Wait Until 8th
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
till I read it, i thought it meant the 8th of November,† and I was thinking "does this have something to do with the election?" I was a little afraid to click "take the pledge" for fear of what I might be supporting † obscure trivial point of US law for fer'ners, US elections are held on "the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November" which puts them anywhere from Nov 2 to Nov 8, so that's why "wait till the 8…
So the second Tuesday of November, or am I missing an exception?